Political homes

When Rep. Duncan Hunter finishes a work day on Capitol Hill, he doesn’t retreat to a condominium or a house in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, like many of his congressional colleagues.

Instead, the 52nd District representative heads back to his office in The Cannon House Office Building, pulls out an inflatable camping pad, and sleeps. He showers after working out at a local gym.

When the workweek ends, he is on the first flight back to San Diego, where he lives in a four-bedroom home in Alpine.

“I don’t live in D.C.,” said Hunter, a former Marine who continues to serve as a captain in the Marine Corps Reserve.

He equated his living situation in D.C. to that when he was stationed in Iraq or 29 Palms. “I work in D.C. I work until I go to sleep, and then I sleep a bit and wake up. It’s like in Iraq. Where I sleep is incidental.”

Hunter says he’s not doing it to make a statement, though a number of his congressional colleagues have turned to dorming in their offices as a show of solidarity with their recession-racked constituents.

Louis Russo, 60, is a member of the Alpine Community Planning Group and a former Marine. He thinks Hunter’s accommodations are commendable, and sees them as a byproduct of his Marine Corps training.

“One of the things in the Marine Corps, as an officer, you set the example, and if you are going to ask other people to do something, then it is expected as an officer you do it first,” said Russo, who is a Republican. “That may be very well much of what he is doing, showing that he knows that his constituents have it rough, so he’s not going to do anything that his constituents couldn’t afford to do.”

Count Barry Jantz, the CEO of the Grossmont Healthcare District, as another constituent that supports Hunter's actions.

"I've known representatives that rarely visited their districts or there were questions if they lived there at all," Jantz said. "It probably shows his commitment to his district and his constituents and that is a good thing."

An estimated 15 percent of Congress members use their offices as their D.C. domiciles. Hunter has been doing it since he was first elected in 2008. He says that it allows him to be flexible and spend more time in his district.

“The reality is that my constituents want me back as often as possible,” Hunter said. “So, I gotta be in SD, talking to people seeing what their concerns are and what are their fixes.”

The practice of “congressional sleepovers” isn’t new. It waxes and wanes with changes in partisan control on Capitol Hill, typically peaking when Republicans control the House. During the 1980s, Democrats urged lawmakers to stop bedding down in their offices. It picked up again in the mid-90s, when Republicans took control of the House for the first time in four decades.

After a lull earlier this decade, the number of office sleepers peaked again in 2010, when voters elected a wave of Tea Party candidates who bed down in their offices to show their separation from the Washington establishment.